Planning the Dark Future

The one question we get more than any other:

When will we be able to buy Cyberpunk Red.

Cyberpunk Red will be our next editionand it will help bridge the gap between Cyberpunk 2020 and the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 video game from CD Projekt Red. Previously, we had announced the game would be released in either Q4 of 2018 or Q1 of 2019. That target window has proven… optimistic for two reasons.

First. We want to get it right. Mike and his team are working hard, breaking down old ideas, testing new ones, and researching the heck out of everything. That takes time.

Second. We want fans of Cyberpunk to be able to flow as seamlessly as possible along the thematic path from 2020 to Red to 2077. That means working closely with CD Projekt Red to ensure timelines and lore match up. Since Cyberpunk 2077 is an evolving project, that means we have to be ready to evolve, too. Sure, Cyberpunk is all about Style over Substance, but we value the substance, too. We know you’ll notice if Red says X happened but 2077 says Y happened and we know that matters to you. It matters to us, too.

As a result, we’re currently saying Cyberpunk Red is a work in progress. We’re hoping for sometime in 2019 but we can’t promise it with one hundred percent certainty. Once we have more to share with you, we absolutely will.

Cyberpunk Designers, We all know that the paradigm of Cyberpunk 2020 was William Gibson’s early work Burning Chrome, Neuromancer and Count Zero. But his timeline turned out to be completely wrong. The U.S. did not decay, the E.U. did not become a dominant superpower, there is no more SovSpace because there are no more (“SOVs). In fact, the reverse happened. The beauty and wonder of Cyberpunk, both the genre and the game, is that it was possible, even scarely likely, to see “there” (Cyberpunk) from “here” (the present). Will Cyberpunk Red and/or Cyberpunk 2077 reflect that Cyberpunk starts from our real present today? If Cyberpunk Red chooses to stay on an “alternate timeline” it will be admitting it is not trying to predict reality, but is just a fantasy. It will wither and die, as people lose interest. Alternatively, this world can easily be speculatively predicted from the present. For example, China moves aggressively to secure a regional bloc and takes over part of Chinese majority Siberia and all of Southeast Asia. Japan and North America aggressively merge to become a bulwark against an expansionist East Asia sphere. Russia decides to ally itself with the E.U. to prevent further Chinese incursion. These three blocs fight neo-imperial wars over Africa, the Middle East and South America, draining there domestic budgets. Megacorporations grow fat on arm sales and extending these blocs credit to finance their adventures, and get greater and greater autonomy (as did the British East India Corporation). And the inevitable result? Cyberpunk. Any of a hundred versions of reality would do, but cyberpunk is a genre that must reflect real, current realities, or wither as just another flavor of fantasy.